Masayoshi Son said the failed performance ofSoftBank Vision Fund 1 meant investors weren’t too happy to invest in Vision Fund 2.- The fund will now use
SoftBank money to continue to invest. However, Son will now be cautious. - Son also said that 15 of their unicorns could go bankrupt because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The performance of Softbank Vision Fund 1 is not that great, therefore we decided to invest our own money. As the performance is not very good, of course the money for SVF2 cannot be asked from other people. It’s not popular right now,” said Son during the earnings call.
However, Son said that this doesn’t mean new investments will not take place, but not aggressively and will take cautious steps for future investments.
SoftBank Vision Fund-1’s has lost 6% on its investments since inception. This includes the rate of return including the manager’s performance fees. The biggest dent came in the last one year, made worse by the COVID-19 crash when it lost $6 billion value on the shares of Alibaba, world’s largest e-commerce company, and another $1.5 billion on account of its shares in the ride-hailing major Uber.
Son also said that 15 of their unicorns could go bankrupt because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Once we see better performance in SVF1, then we may be able to get offers from people other than us to participate in SVF2,” he said.
It was earlier reported that SoftBank itself poured in $5 billion into the second vision fund (SVF2) with a total reported size of $108 billion.
Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank Group has reported a net loss of $8.9 billion for the financial year ended March 2020. The Masayoshi Son-led group has also posted an operating loss of $13 billion.
This is the first time in 15 years Softbank posted a loss because of ‘the deteriorating performance of its tech bets’.
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